From the archives: Back from Iraq: Clinton soldier reflects on end of U.S. mission

Isaiah Lloyd, right, came home to Clinton in time for Christmas after serving with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division as one of the last U.S. troops to leave Iraq. His father, Roger Lloyd, left, has organized a homecoming celebration Sunday at their church.(Photo: J. Miles Cary/News Sentinel)

Pfc. Isaiah Lloyd walked some of the Army's last patrols in Iraq, dodged roadside bombs and still came home in time for Christmas.

"I don't know that I'll miss anything from over there," he said. "When we left, it was a good feeling. I knew we were done there for good."

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Lloyd, 19, wasn't born the first time U.S. troops went to war in Iraq. He was 11 years old when the U.S. invaded the country for the second time in 2003.

He grew up in Anderson County amid news reports of the fighting half a world away ? Iraq's election of 2005, the suicide bombings, the surge of 2007 under Gen. David Petraeus. None of that news, good or bad, kept him from enlisting in June last year after graduation from Anderson County High School.

Lloyd spent seven months in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, N.C. He walked patrols and guarded convoys in Fallujah and Ramadi and at Al Asad Air Base and left at the end of November, not long before the final U.S. convoy crossed the Kuwaiti border this month.

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"We were one of the last units there," he said. "I feel like we accomplished a lot. Now that we're gone, I think they'll probably have their own civil war. Most of the people in their military want to make it work. Maybe they'll get things together in another 10 years."

Now he's back in East Tennessee on leave, visiting with family until he returns to duty at Fort Bragg with his wife, Kimberly. Friends and family have planned a welcome-home celebration for Sunday at Black Oak Baptist Church in Clinton.

His father, Roger, didn't shave from the day Lloyd left to the day he got back.

"That was my tribute," the father said. "It reminded me every day to pray for him and all the others serving with him."

After coming home at the end of a war that's lasted nearly half his life, Lloyd said he's not sure what will be next. He expects he'll see service in Afghanistan at some point, but he's content to serve stateside for now.

"I'll never forget sitting in those trucks in the desert, when it felt like we were inside an oven, and I'll never forget the friends I made and the times we had," he said. "But I'm glad to see the mountains and the green grass again."